Monthly Archives: July 2012

It is a well-known fact that web browsers on Apple iOS devices do not support Flash and with Adobe’s recent announcement to focus on HTML5 as standard rich content on mobile devices, the writing is on the wall: Flash content on mobile devices is a thing of the past, HTML5 is the future. I see two options for Adobe Captivate developers to deploy their content on mobile devices today and in the future:

1. Publish content as HTML5, which learner can access via their device’s web browser, or
2. Package Flash-based Captivate content as an APPLICATION that runs locally on the device.

While publishing to HTML5 only requires a a few mouse clicks in CP6, you currently have to live with some limitations. For example, CP 6.0 does not support the following:

• Text and SWF animations (only the first frame is visible). Animations in imported PPTX files are also not supported
• Rollover captions, images, and slidelet
• Mouse click animations (only one default click effect is supported)
• Question pools, question slides (Matching, Short Answer, Likert, Fill in the blanks), and random question slide
• Slide transitions
• Slide background if a SWF file is used
• Static widgets (Interactive and Question widgets are supported)
• Audio attached to invisible objects
• Mouse right-click and double-click
• Borders.

Also, only a subset of Effects are supported and third-party widgets may have to be updated to work with CP6. If you can’t wait for a future CP version to provide full-feature HTML5 support, there is another option available right now:

Package Captivate 6 content as a native iOS application

The process is fairly simple and involves the following steps:

1. Sign up for Apple’s iOS Developer Program. This will allow you to attain the required developer certificate and generate provisioning profiles and AppIDs.
2. In Captivate, publish a project as a Flash (.swf)
3. Create any other assets, e.g. app icon images and launch images
4. Package .swf file into an iOS application file (.ipa)
5. Install app on a device connected to your PC/Mac with iTunes or upload to the App Store.

Steps 1 is a ‘no-brainer’ and doesn’t require any explanation. For information on app icons and launch images, see the iOS Human Interface Guidelines.

For packaging Flash content into an Android app file, Adobe provides Adobe AIR, a tool that combines the Flash content with all required runtime files into a standalone application. For the uninitiated, Adobe AIR’s archaic command line interface may be intimidating. However, the documentation provides all the required info to a) package the app and b) install the app on a mobile device. And once you have gone through this process a few times, it will be a matter of replacing file names in the command strings to package the next app.

Owners of the eLearningSuite have another option: you can use Flash Professional to create a ‘container’ file that loads the Captivate Flash at runtime. This may seem like a detour, but consider this: Flash provides an easy-to-use Publishing window that allows you to specify the certificate, provisioning profile and AppID, add icon files, any external files, etc. Also, from Flash you can install the app directly on a USB-connected iOS device for testing.

No command line gimmicks needed!

For some info on Flash publishing options for iOS, check out this tutorial.

View the video below to see a Captivate 6 project that was packaged with AIR as an application, running on a iPhone 4S.

The process is the same for iPads.

There you have it, Captivate+AIR(or Flash)=yet another option to distribute your content to mobile learners!

Object effects in Captivate have been around since version 5 and the functionality is unchanged in CP6. From the Effects panel, you can:

• apply effect(s) to an object
• fine-tune effect parameters (if available)
• Save/Load effects
• Create custom effects in Flash and load them into CP

In addition to time-based effects, you can also trigger an effect by an event, e.g. clicking a button or apply an effect to an object as part of an Advanced Action script…Nothing new here…

What I don’t understand is why Adobe does not provide a list/description or, even better, a demo of the various effects. While the effect names may give you a clue, I often find myself having to try several effects before I find one that does what I need.

View the video below with only a few examples of effects that I have used in Captivate projects:

Get creative and add effects to your Captivate projects! Continue reading →

Web browsers on most Android devices today support Flash. Any Captivate 6 content that can be viewed on a desktop PC/Mac is very likely to run on Android devices’ web browsers as well. However, with Adobe’s recent announcement to focus on HTML5 as standard rich content on mobile devices, the writing is on the wall: Flash content on mobile devices is a thing of the past, HTML5 is the future. I see two options for Captivate 6 developers to deploy their content on mobile devices today and in the future:

1. Publish content as HTML5, which learner can access via their device’s web browser, or
2. Package Flash-based Captivate content as an APPLICATION that runs locally on the device.

While publishing to HTML5 only requires a a few mouse clicks in CP6, you currently have to live with some limitations. For example, CP 6.0 does not support the following:

• Text and SWF animations (only the first frame is visible). Animations in imported PPTX files are also not supported
• Rollover captions, images, and slidelet
• Mouse click animations (only one default click effect is supported)
• Question pools, question slides (Matching, Short Answer, Likert, Fill in the blanks), and random question slide
• Slide transitions
• Slide background if a SWF file is used
• Static widgets (Interactive and Question widgets are supported)
• Audio attached to invisible objects
• Mouse right-click and double-click
• Borders.

Also, only a subset of Effects are supported and third-party widgets may have to be updated to work with CP6. If you can’t wait for a future CP version to provide full-feature HTML5 support, there is another option available right now:

Package Captivate 6 content as a native Android application

The process is fairly simple and involves the following steps:

1. In Captivate, publish a project as a Flash (.swf)
2. Create any other assets, e.g. app icon images
3. Package .swf file into an Android application file (.apk)
4. Install app on a device connected to your PC/Mac or upload to Google Android market (now called ‘Google Play’).

Steps 1 is a ‘no-brainer’ and doesn’t require any explanation. For information on app icons and templates, see the Icon Design Guidelines.

For packaging Flash content into an Android app file, Adobe provides Adobe AIR, a tool that combines the Flash content with all required runtime files into a standalone application. For the uninitiated, Adobe AIR’s archaic command line interface may be intimidating. However, the documentation provides all the required info to a) create a certificate, b) package the app and c) install the app on a mobile device. And once you have gone through this process a few times, it will be a matter of replacing file names in the command strings to package the next app.

Owners of the eLearningSuite have another option: you can use Flash Professional to create a ‘container’ file that loads the Captivate Flash at runtime. This may seem like a detour, but consider this: Flash provides an easy-to-use Publishing window that allows you to create a certificate, set permissions, add icon files, any external files, etc. Also, Flash allows you to install the app directly on a USB-connected device.

No command line gimmicks needed!

Using this approach has another advantage, you could enhance the user experience by adding Android-specific functions to the container file. For example, you can add a function that responds to the user pressing the device’s menu button. For some info on Flash publishing options for Android, check out this tutorial.

View the video below to see a Captivate 6 project that was packaged with AIR as an application, running on a Samsung Galaxy SII phone.

The process is the same for Android tablets.

There you have it, Captivate+AIR(or Flash)=yet another option to distribute your content to mobile learners!